


christmas eve'll find me

by renecdote



Category: Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Family tension, Gen, Happy Ending, Holiday plan negotiations, mention of injury
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-30
Updated: 2019-12-30
Packaged: 2021-02-27 13:20:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,603
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22027705
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/renecdote/pseuds/renecdote
Summary: He doesn’t want things to feel the way they used to when he knows they can never be the same again.He doesn’t want them to feel different.Bruce stops by to ask Jason to come home for the holidays. Jason has complicated feelings about that.
Comments: 20
Kudos: 148
Collections: Batfam Christmas Stocking 2019





	christmas eve'll find me

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Ursapharoh15](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ursapharoh15/gifts).



> This is a bit of a loose interpretation of the prompt, but I hope you like it :)
> 
> Title taken from 'I'll Be Home For Christmas'.

The crutches catch in the snow and Jason swears as he stumbles, weight landing on his twisted ankle. Stupid ankle, stupid crutches, stupid fricken snow. He keeps up a stream of disgruntled muttering as he slowly navigates his way along the footpath to his apartment building. When he gets there and looks up from the careful attention he’s paying to every step, he almost turns around and hobbles back the way he came, ankle and crutches and snow be damned. 

“Jason,” Bruce says. He stands up, absently brushing away the snow that collected on his pants while he was waiting on Jason’s front steps. 

“Bruce,” Jason echoes. His hair is falling in his eyes and he reaches up to push it back in irritation. Stupid hair. “What brings you to my humble abode?”

He’s expecting some bullshit about it being the holidays and family and togetherness and blah, blah, blah. What he gets instead is: “Alfred sent me.”

Jason blinks. 

Bruce shoves his hands in the pockets of his coat. “There’s supposed to be a blizzard,” he continues. “And you know how he worries.”

_Not really, not anymore_ , Jason thinks. He can’t bring himself to say it though.

“And it’s Christmas.”

The words are tacked on like an afterthought. Like a footnote. _For further proof of my argument, see family photo albums x, y and z._ Jason snorts. 

“I’ve decided not to celebrate Christmas this year,” he says. He lifts his chin like a challenge. Holidays or no holidays, Bruce can’t make him go home. He can’t make Jason do anything he doesn’t want to do. He couldn’t when Jason was fifteen, running off to find his mother, and he sure as hell can’t now.

Bruce steps closer. One shoulder twitches, like he’s going to reach out but catches himself in time. There are boundaries between them these days and Jason hates them even as he throws more up, makes them stronger, patches any holes that threaten to weaken them. Maybe it makes him as much of a bastard as Bruce, but Jason is fine with that. It’s better than the alternative. Better than admitting that he just wants to hug his dad the way he used to, that the fear of being rejected keeps him up at night.

“It’s not about Christmas, Jay,” Bruce says quietly. 

Jason’s walls tremble with the aftershocks of everything not said but clearly heard in those words. He looks away, across at the broken neon sign for the twenty-four hour pharmacy, then down at the trampled, dirty snow. He doesn’t want to have this conversation, but he especially doesn’t want to have it standing on the street outside his apartment building.

“Look—” he starts and he still isn’t sure whether he’s going to tell Bruce to fuck off or invite him up for a cup of tea. 

The heavy door at the top of the stairs opens and three children spill out, their harried mother trying to wind a scarf around the youngest’s neck and close the door behind her at the same time. Mia, apartment 4A, single mother to Chloe, Jess and Peter. Jason helps her carry bags of groceries upstairs sometimes, or fixes things in her apartment when maintenance would take too long to do it. She gives Jason a distracted smile and he nods back. Bruce watches the whole interaction with a wrinkle between his brow, but Jason can’t tell what the hell he’s thinking. It makes his shoulders hunch a little more defensively. He used to be so good at reading Bruce.

“You used to be that small,” Bruce says after a moment. It shocks Jason into making eye contact, seeing the flash of pain twisting Bruce’s lips before he quashes it. He huffs out a breath, not quite a laugh. “That old Christmas sweater of mine you loved to wear when we opened presents is probably too small for you now.”

Jason remembers that sweater. Bright red with Rudolph on the front, a bell around his neck and a flashing red light for his nose. He almost smiles. It really was ugly, no wonder Bruce never wanted to wear it. Jason had never had things like that before though, things just for Christmas. Clothing was worn every week, sometimes every day, until it was more holes than cloth. Then Bruce took him in and suddenly he had anything he could possibly want.

Now he doesn’t know what exactly he wants, but he’s pretty sure it’s the one thing he doesn’t have—can’t have—anymore.

“Yeah, well.” Jason shrugs uncomfortably under Bruce’s gaze. “A lot of things have changed.”

It comes out more bitter than he intends. If he’s honest, a part of him was going for angry. Mean. If he could goad Bruce into starting a fight, it would probably end with one or both of them storming off and then they wouldn’t have to have this awkward conversation about how Jason doesn’t want to go home for the holidays. He doesn’t want to wake up with the smell of cinnamon and cloves in the air or curl up beside the fireplace with a book after a family dinner. He doesn’t want to open presents and drink hot cocoa and listen to Alfred’s warm voice reading _Twas The Night Before Christmas_. He doesn’t want things to feel the way they used to when he knows they can never be the same again.

He doesn’t want them to feel different.

Bruce steps closer. “Come home, Jay,” he says, quiet and earnest and— _fuck_ Jason has always been a bleeding heart and Bruce knows it. 

It makes him angry, suddenly, fiercely, washing through him like a tidal wave. Because Bruce _knows_ him, knows what buttons to push, what heartstrings to tug on. 

Jason steps back, growling when the damned crutches slide on the snow-slick sidewalk. “Don’t touch me,” he snaps, twisting away from the hand that darts forward to balance him. Maybe he should have let it happen, just this once, because he overbalances, drops one of the crutches and ends up catching himself hard against the low brick wall bordering the stairs. The sharp corner digs into his side and he squeezes his eyes shut against the sudden, flaring pain.

“Fuck,” he hisses.

Bruce is still hovering, statuesque in his sudden stillness since Jason snapped at him. “Jay?” He says, almost tentative, almost concerned.

“Don’t touch me,” Jason repeats, but all of the venom is gone, sapped away by the pain and frustration that almost bring him to tears. He fucking hates crutches. “Don’t… don’t _manipulate_ me.”

“I wasn’t—” Bruce stops. Takes a breath. Jason’s eyes’s are still closed, but he can hear it, feel it from years of working with him, the way Bruce finds that reset button in his brain and starts the conversation again. “I would like you to come home for Christmas, Jason, we all would. But it’s your choice. I’m not going to… It’s your choice.”

Bruce picks up the fallen crutch and offers it to Jason. When Jason snatches it back, Bruce waits until he’s steady on his feet before turning to walk away. Jason is just going to watch him go, he really is, but—

“Wait.”

His crutches are digging in uncomfortably under his arms and his toes are starting to numb from the snow melting through his shoes. He wants to be inside his warm apartment, hot cup of tea in one hand, a good book in the other. 

He wants to remember what Alfred’s glazed ham tastes like, what it felt like waking up Christmas morning knowing there were presents under the tree, what Bruce’s voice sounds like murmuring the blessing before he lit the candles in the menorah.

Bruce turns back, hope held carefully out of his face.

“I didn’t get anyone presents,” Jason says lamely. 

Bruce smiles. Small, more in the crinkle around his eyes than the curve of his lips, but it’s there. “That’s alright,” he says. 

Jason gets the impression that he’s just handed Bruce the best Christmas present since… he doesn’t even know. Maybe since that stupid, ugly, beaded tie-pin he made in art class his first year at the manor. It almost makes him want to snatch it back, snarl and shout that he’s not doing it for Bruce. It’s his decision and he can take it back at any time, spend Christmas in his apartment or, hell, in the goddamn sewers if that’s what he feels like doing.

He swallows it down. He’s cold and sore and can at least wait until he’s had some of Alfred’s infamous mulled wine before getting into it with Bruce again.

“I’ll need to grab a few things,” he says, gesturing awkwardly up to the fifth-floor window where his apartment looks down over the street.

Bruce opens the heavy front door for him and Jason hesitates only a moment before leading the way up to his apartment. When Bruce pauses in the doorway, Jason only wrestles with himself for a few seconds before gesturing awkwardly and saying, “You can come in. Just, uh, sit down or something. I won’t be long.”

“I can help,” Bruce offers. 

“Thanks,” Jason says, the word almost clumsy in the way it slips out, “But I’ve got it.”

Bruce nods, not pushing. Jason is glad for that. He leaves Bruce by the couch and heads toward his bedroom, thinking about all the things he’ll need to pack for a trip home for the holidays. Socks, pyjamas, phone charge. And hey, maybe he can even find something to wrap and put under the tree later as well.

**Author's Note:**

> Tumblr is [here](https://renecdote.tumblr.com/)


End file.
